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As part of our continued growth, Philip Friel Advanced Dentistry is looking to recruit a part time Specialist in Orthodontics to provide private care in our Hyndland Clinic.

Full support will be provided in our state of the art facility with an opportunity to work as part of a multi disciplinary team to provide the best possible care. Our facility is bright and modern, computerised (R4), digital radiographs, Digital OPG and CBCT scanning and modern dental equipment. The support network is excellent and experienced within the clinic allowing seamless transition for the successful candidate.

The successful candidate will be GDC registered and indemnified, enthusiastic, committed and hard working. An ability to work as part of a progressive team is essential with a view to progressing knowledge and skills with involvement in post-graduate training and support.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a growing and progressive group and to be part of a passionate team, with excellent support & rates of remuneration.

God forgive me, but whilst berating Pam and the girls for reading Hello magazine and the like, it is a guilty pleasure of mine to leaf through the pages of these scandal rags when no one is looking. And so I am coming clean here and now – I just love those images of a wasted Charlie Sheen or a dishevelled Lyndsey Lohan falling in and out of taxis in the Hollywood Hills. I want to know if Beyoncé’s marriage IS on the rocks and who WAS that guy seen leaving Britney’s apartment at dawn.

I am in Florida right now and when I am on holiday I enjoy going shopping with my wife. Yesterday, as I was unloading the trolley onto the cashier’s conveyor belt at the local supermarket, I found myself scanning the headlines of the Celebrity mags displayed at the checkout – cunningly positioned for that last minute impulse buy.

All the usual faces on the covers: Oprah, Britney, Angelina, Brad….but there in screaming neon print, the startling headline, “Does Brad have false teeth?” I gawp at the words, struggling to process their meaning – Is it possible? Could it be true that the most beautiful man in the world wears dentures? My mind races – do Angelina and Jennifer know? Yes, it’s all coming back to me now; when the other guys ordered steaks the night before the heist in Ocean’s Eleven, Brad had spaghetti! And when they were filming that Zombie film in George Square, a shop assistant in Boots claimed to have sold him 4 tubes of Dentufix… and no one listened.

Brad, if you read this, make an appointment with us in Glasgow. We can give you dental implants – it won’t hurt, I know you can afford it and soon you will be able to snog Angelina with newfound abandon!

As all our Glasgow-based dental care professionals are registered with the GDC we are required to adhere to the new deadlines.

As part of the changes we decided to upgrade our website and in particular focus on the method of receiving emails from patients and about patients being referred to us by other dentists.

We have introduced a new secure message system which means that any patient now contacting our clinic about anything from an initial appointment to a query about more advanced treatment such as dental implants or crowns in the knowledge the message will be encrypted until I access it via a secure password system.

We researched the best solutions to meet the new guideline on secure messaging and opted for Valident.

We opted for Valident to implement our online secure messaging

Nigel Knott who launched the software is a qualified dentist so he understood the clinic’s needs.

He added: ” Valident is a unique online personal data protection mechanism developed to fulfil all of the regulations set down by the General Dental Council (GDC) in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Dentists have a special responsibility for ensuring that they fulfil their duty of care to protect patient confidentiality at all times including the use of the Internet and e-communications for data transfers/data sharing.

“The Philip Friel Advanced Dentistry website sets an example of best practice in adding the very latest secure online communication technology to bring the necessary confidence and trust to all practice patients and referring practitioners, safe in the knowledge that patient confidentiality and personal data security is being protected at all times.”

If you have any questions about this blog post or would like to know more about the dental services and treatments we offer our patients, please contact the reception team in the first instance on 0141 339 7579 or use our secure messaging service by clicking here.

Here is the first in a series of blog posts composed by our dental colleague Glen Frew.

As you’ll read from this intro Glen has amassed great experience in the field of dental implant surgery, which he carries out at our Glasgow dental clinic.

Here Glen turns the clock back to focus on what became a significant chance meeting…

Dentist Glen Frew

1992 – a wet, windy morning in Dublin and I am stood waiting in a queue for a taxi to the Conference Centre.

In front of me an older chap’s umbrella was blown inside out and, in his attempts to rectify matters, he dropped a folder sending papers fluttering into puddles along O’Connell Street.

We chased them down and, in doing so, I cannot help but notice that the headings on the sheets were the same as on the Information Pack in my briefcase.

“Are you going the Osseointegration Conference?”, I enquired.
” Thank you, yes – are you?”, he said, in a Scandinavian accent.

Professor Branemark – the ‘father’ of modern day implant surgery. (Image: www.branemark.com)

He wore a large floppy bowtie that reminded me of Gepetto, Pinocchio’s father in the Disney film.

“Yes, let’s go!”, and we both clambered into a cab.

He told me he was from Sweden and was doing a presentation at the Conference.

He seemed more interested in examining the spokes in my undamaged umbrella and comparing them with the twisted wires in his own mangled parasol. I explained that mine was stronger as it had been designed to withstand the blasts of Scottish golf and we laughed.

I introduced myself and we shook hands.

“I am Per-Ingvar Branemark” he smiled, alighting at our destination.

Half an hour later he was quietly addressing a thousand delegates, who listened in respectful silence as the great man described his experiment 40 years previously, when he had planted a tiny titanium instrument in a rabbit’s broken leg to monitor the healing process.

When he went in months later to retrieve the instrument it had become enveloped in bone and could only be removed with great difficulty.

And so, by pure accident (like the landmark discoveries of penicillin,insulin and x rays) Branemark learned that bone fuses to titanium without any reaction leading to rejection – this discovery opening new frontiers in orthopaedic surgery and dentistry in particular.

More than 3 million dental implants will be placed worldwide in 2013, with success rates at 95% or higher over 10 years.

Dental implants play a crucial part in the restorative treatments we offer at our dental clinic in Hyndland, Glasgow – with inestimable benefit to so many patients.

I wonder if the spokes in my brolly were titanium?

Should you have any queries about this blog or would like to find out more information about dental implants and the other treatments we offer please contact us via the website by clicking here or by calling 0141 339 7579.

Throughout the year we invite our colleagues at our Glasgow dental clinic to put together blogs focusing on their work, past or present.

Dentist colleague Glen Frew graduated from Glasgow University in 1978 and entered private practice in the city’s Hyndland area in 1992.

WEALTH OF DENTAL IMPLANT KNOWLEDGE

At that time, through training in Gothenburg, he met and became a disciple of Per-Ingvar Branemark – regarded as ‘the father of dental implantology’ – who also discovered osseointegration (the biological fusion of bone to titanium).

And so Glen became one of the first dental surgeons in Scotland to introduce implantology into day-to-day practice.

With his considerable experience and post graduate training in Europe and the United States, Glen has a wealth of dental implant knowledge and an evidence base which he has accumulated over the years.

FANTASTIC WAY WITH WORDS

As well as his dental expertise, Glen has a fantastic way with words.

With this in mind, we have asked him to produce a small series of blogs – focused on some musings/recollections, career defining moments, major changes which have occurred in the field of dentistry and other considered tales or outstanding moments.

The first of these blogs, presented unprompted, is almost complete and when you read it, you will understand why I was keen for more. Keep up to date with our blog for Glen’s debut instalment.

If you have any questions about the above post or would like to find out more about the services and treatments – including dental implants – that we offer at our Glasgow dental clinic then please contact us on 0141 339 7579.

Here at our Glasgow dental clinic we pride ourselves in our knowledge and expertise in the field of dental implant surgery and fully appreciate the aesthetic and functional benefits implants can offer our patients.

I have a particularly keen interest in this field of dental work and have travelled extensively in pursuit of the newest advances in implant surgery.

AWE INSPIRING

I was delighted to be invited recently to the Branemark Clinic in Johannesburg for an advanced implant training course.

Philip with Professor Howes at the institute in South Africa

This course was run by Professor Dale Howes and Dr Greg Boyes-Barley. This surgeon and prosthodontist are leaders in their field, carrying out many and varied functional and aesthetic rehabilitations for patients who have lost their dentition and function.

In addition to this, their work involved the complex reconstruction of patients who have lost cast areas of their faces from disease or trauma (most notably gunshot wounds). This work is awe inspiring and the dedication of Professor Howes and Dr Boyes-Barley is palpable.

DEDICATED TO EDUCATING

Despite their skill and reputation, they are both humble down to earth individuals who are completely dedicated to educating and passing on their knowledge.

This advanced work is made possible with the use of angular end and zygomatic implants which we have available in the clinic as part of our expanded treatment offerings.

The angular implants in particular allow the more predictable and immediate replacement of front teeth whilst allowing a temporary crown to be placed immediately in many cases meant no need for cumbersome dentures. There are also options available for molar teeth.

The three-day trip to South Africa was tiring because of the travel but the benefits accrued from seeing the professor and doctor at work were immesurable.

If you have any questions about this blog please contact our clinic team on 0141 339 7579 or you can send a secure message via our website by clicking here.

It was in 1982 at a conference in Toronto that Professor Branemark’s pioneering work in the biological fusion of bone to a foreign material (titanium) was presented and is seen as one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in dentistry since the late 1970s.

One of the key parts of his research had focused on titanium posts being placed into the lower leg bones of rabbits and the discovery that they could not be removed after a period of healing. His work then turned to inventing a type of dental implant using pure titanium screws and from then on the dental world embraced his invention.

Branemark’s clinics are regarded as centres of excellence in education and the professor has acknowledged the need to share that knowledge throughout the dental profession.

The professor’s own words state: “I fully know and respect that osseointegration in dentistry and medicine, is the result of decades of international, open minded, unprejudiced cooperation and communication, a willingness to share results, problems and ideas.”

The Branemark Institute – globally known centre for implant knowledge

INTENSIVE TRAINING

It was my own recognition of the pioneering work done in these centres that turned my attention to the clinic in Johannesburg and my decision to sign up for a three day intensive training course with leading experts in their field.

I will share the experience of my visit to the South African clinic in a future blog.

If you have any questions about implants or any other aspects of this blog please contact our clinic on 0141 339 7579 or by secure email messaging here.

As part of our Glasgow dental clinic’s commitment to expanding our team’s knowledge and experience in the treatments and services we offer, my colleagues and I will travel far and wide.

Today I’m at the internationally renowned Branemark Institute in South Africa for an intensive course on advanced implant surgical techniques including the use of angulated implants and zygomatic implants.

The Branemark Institute – globally known centre for implant knowledge

The course includes lectures, live surgery sessions and discussions with implant dentists from UK, Ireland, Russia, Australia, South America and USA.

It’s a long way to travel for three days but we’re midway through the first morning session and it’s definitely worth it.

Will update you on progress.

If you’ve any questions about this blog post or would like to know more about the implant surgery I do at the Glasgow dental clinic and also in Edinburgh at the New Town Dental Care Clinic then please contact us via the website by clicking here.

Our Glasgow dental clinic reception team on 0141 339 759 can also help with any questions.

Our team is constantly advancing our knowledge on the topic of implants and we have a programme of courses and seminars during which we, in turn, share our knowledge with other dentists from all over the country.

Our clinic launches new plans for implant courses

As part of this process we have recently set up “Stepping Stones in Implant Dentistry” which is an innovative and unique programme of dental implant education, mentoring and training.

At the moment all the information for this new programme will be released via a new Facebook page which can be accessed here.

If you’re a dental care professional please “Like” our page and that way you’ll be sure to be the first to know of the new programme we’re rolling out in the coming months and years.

We’ll release details of the programme very soon.

Should you have any questions about the above post or would like to find our more about the benefits of dental implant surgery then please contact us via the website or by phoning our reception team on 0141 339 7579.